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view the letter to the editor the editorial below is written in response
to.

Authorship of the editorial (below) is not credited in the magazine,
but the editorialís content implies the author is H. Gaylord Wilshire.

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[untitled]

DEAR
SIR: In the issue of May 1, page 8, of
CHALLENGE, will be seen my explanation
of why a weekly paper is so belated in its discussion of current
events. I then said that the paper was in the post-office six days
before it was dated, and [8][9] I have
as yet, in common with the publishers of most other weekly papers,
found no better way of managing affairs. President McKinley was
shot on the 6th, and CHALLENGE of the
11th was already on the press, and I myself was in Erie, Pa. With
this explanation, you can readily see the absurdity and injustice
of asking even such an unparalleled creation as Wilshire to do the
impossible and have an editorial on the subject in the issue in
which you looked for it. When I have my daily I will, for the first
time, let the world see the only fully guaranteed unscoopable paper
ever made. As it is now, CHALLENGE, as
a weekly, will persistently remain ten days behind the times. CHALLENGE
may kill Time, but that is not the same thing as making it, as you
seem to wish it to do.
Yes, CHALLENGE
is filled with a great deal of wind about Wilshire, but it appears
to be necessary to advertise oneís goods nowadays if you wish to
get them off your shelves. My ideas are my stock in trade, and while
they ought to sell on their own merits, as they speak for themselves,
so to say, I find that ideas, like every kind of goods, sell largely
owing to the reputation of the maker.
Now, for the ordinary manufacturer
to get up a great reputation requires lots of advertising, which
means much money spent. So far I have been able to get my advertising
free of charge, by such expedients as getting arrested for infringing
ordinances suppressing free speech and offering your champion, Bryan,
$10,000 to debate with me. However, possibly the greatest amount
of free advertising I ever got in my life was during the last few
weeks, when I was so copiously reported to have been mobbed in half
a dozen towns, all at one and the same time. The mere fact it was
all untrue does not detract in the least from its advertising value.
People here in New York think now that I must have stolen Carrie
Nationís advance agent away from her to get so much notoriety with
so little effort. But this is really quite ridiculous. I should
have established my own reputation well enough by this time to have
the credit fall to me and me alone for such artistic triumphs along
the line of self-advertisement. It would be quite as impossible
for me to hire an agent to do for me what I can do myself, in the
way of getting free advertising, as it would have been impossible
for Shakespeare to have hired a typewriter girl to have composed
Hamlet. We artists must lead a strenuous life perforce, simply because
we canít hire anyone to create for us.
If you wish ease in this life, I advise
you to hang on to that City Attorneyship, Mr. Man, and never let
the Goddess of Art lead you away from politics.